


There is no peace that I've found so far

by lapoesieestdanslarue



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, and a lil' bit of fluff too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 04:07:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5115230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lapoesieestdanslarue/pseuds/lapoesieestdanslarue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellamy Blake and Clarke Griffin are whirlwinds of humans, they are brushing hands and knocking knees, but they are nothing more.</p><p>(They are tangled sheets, clasped hands and light kisses. But nothing more.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	There is no peace that I've found so far

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there! This is my first time writing Bellarke so I hope you all enjoy!

When he first came to earth, he could’ve almost felt like a new man. He looked around at everyone else, who, as soon as they stepped foot on the soil, are filled with wonder, with a new-ness. Souls are  wiped clean, stains on existences removed and hands cleansed of any blood on them. If he wanted to, he could even get that damn gunpowder off of his.

At least, that’s what he told himself as he watched Octavia look at this new world they’ve only ever heard of in science books and seen from far away in awe. Because he did it all for her- of course he did, how could he _not?_ She’s his sister, he’s her brother, her protector. So it’s worth it, it will always be worth it, wouldn’t matter if it cost him a bullet from a gun into Jaha’s heart or his own damn life- if he could give Octavia a new start with a life she deserved to live, a life in the sun as opposed to the shadows, then he would do it all again, consequences be damned.

It’s not so easy for him, of course. It’s still worth it, but it doesn’t stop the wave of something ( ~~guilt guilt guilt~~ _Anger_ ) that washes over him whenever he looks at Wells Jaha. Doesn’t stop the knot of disgust that’s been nestled in his heart since he first had to hide Octavia under the floorboards from growing. It’s there, always, and serves as a constant reminder. That the world is a horribly unfair place, doesn’t matter what you do, there will always be someone like Clarke Griffin or her Spacewalker boyfriend to try to stop you.

But Bellamy’s had enough of being walked on, so he’ll just give them two fingers, say _‘Thank you but fuck you’_ and continue to lead the camp his way- the _right_ way.

He hasn’t even been on Earth a week, and yet the Princess has managed to piss him off immeasurably. He knew, of course, the second he saw her, as soon as she opened her mouth to snap at him for going to open the dropship door, that they would most likely butt heads. He was, obviously, not wrong. If Bellamy says black, Clarke has to say white. Granted, sometimes she is right, and okay, sometimes he’ll disagree with her because when she gets mad her nose scrunches up and it’s a little fun to see her riled up.

The point is, is that Clarke Griffin is not helping Bellamy’s view of the world. He knew the second that he saw her that she would rub him the wrong way. From the way she held herself,  even the way she spoke- instilled with self-righteousness and know-it-all-ness, everything about her screamed that she had grown up getting what she wanted. And that is exactly what Bellamy hates. Because while she was getting cosy with the high-society of the ark, Bellamy was picking up extra jobs on the side cleaning trying to scrape together enough to treat O to one of those fancy cakes the baker made every once in a while. And it doesn’t even matter to Clarke that they’re on the Earth, that old rules don’t apply to them, she still wants things to be the way they were. And by that, he means that she wants to be in control. And he won’t let that happen, not if it kills him. He’s spent too long at the bottom, and he’s enjoying the view from the top.

It’s always been like this, he supposes. The universe tripping him up every chance it gets- hating him, and him hating the universe back. The universe and him, constantly  at odds.

Hate is what Bellamy Blake does best, and love needn’t come into the equation, because apart from O, who is there to love? ~~Who is there to love him?~~

~*~

 

He’s not made for hate, though, he wasn’t born from it. Not even a monster like Bellamy Blake can hate and hate relentlessly with no stop.

The crevice that _had_ been carved out in his chest, which he used to store his anger and bitterness, is slowly filling. It’s filled with things like tentative hope and a feeling of being recreated. And they grow and grow, day by day, leaving less and less room for hate with each passing second.

And, admittedly, he’s completely wrong about Clarke.

It throws him off base, as he starts to see this new side to her, a side that _is_ fair, that he can agree with. She’s not what he thought she was. She’s not self-centered or uppity or demanding. She’s selfless and noble and strong.

He calls her Princess as a joke, because it gets under her skin and he has a reputation to uphold- Anyway the point is. The point is, is that he’ll call her that- Princess- but he knows the truth. That she’s a goddamn good leader, she’s fair and she helps take the weight off the decisions they have to make off his shoulders.

That if he’s the king, she’s the queen.

 

~*~

Jasper makes damn good moonshine.

It burns the back of Bellamy's throat, but after four or five cups he can barely feel it.

Their eyes meet from across the fire and shit she’s doing that thing again where she makes him feel light and weightless and makes the breath at the back of his throat catch.

Eventually, as the night sky darkens, the crowd thins as people retire to their beds, and soon enough it’s just Clarke and him, sitting a lot closer than they were when dinner began.

Look, it happened like this.

It's a quiet night, the woods are still and the cicadas are filling the void with their noise-

Hands brush and she entwines their fingers together-

He turns to look at her and gets caught in the labyrinth of her eyes-

Their breaths are mingled, lips ghosting over each other-

He places a gentle kiss on hers, and from there it grows, gets deeper, more passionate, hands run through hair and roam each other's bodies.

Her mind is hazy and so is his; so they stumble into his tent, too wrapped up in each other than to worry about being caught, and it’s not the moonshine that’s making them drunk- it’s each other.

And then her hands run up his abdomen and slowly pry off his shirt and her lips are pressed to his neck and oh my god Clarke Griffin’s skin is something marvel at. Everytime she touches him a flare runs through him, and she lets out a breathy laugh when she feels how hard his heart is thudding- faster than it's ever done before- but he knows it's fine, because her heart is fluttering beneath her chest.

He lays her gently down onto the bed and dogs his fingers into her hips as her nails rake down his back.

And for once Bellamy wasn’t worried about the camp, or Octavia, or the Mountain Men. All he could think about was “'Holy crap this is incredible."

It's different with Raven and the countless other girls.

It's not this intimate, it's usually mainly adrenaline-fueled and fast. Not that Bellamy doesn't like that, he loves that, it's just that with Clarke...

With Clarke it's worth the wait. Worth all the countless fleeting glances and skirting past each other for the past while. With Clarke they're in no rush- it's slow and passionate and not at all animalistic.

When they finish, there panting and sweaty and neither of them wants to disentangle themselves from the other, so they lay there, together. And there's something in the way that she cards her fingers gently through his hair as they both begin to drift asleep that makes him feel safe. Needed. Wanted.

 

~*~

When Bellamy wakes up the next day- alone- he swallows, and mentally kicks himself for letting himself get so drunk that he’d sleep with _Clarke._ What the hell was he thinking? A ball of nerves, heavy as lead, settles at the bottom of his stomach as he gets dressed (he tries to ignore the fact that his shirt very faintly smells like Clarke) and goes out, dreading having to face everyone and put up with the raised eyebrows (and in some cases glares) and interrogation.

But he steps outside his tent, and instead of a smirk, Miller greets him with an update on the hunting party. And instead of Jasper and Monty giggling and announcing the winners of the betting pool (Octavia had very happily informed him that she bet her knife that he and Clarke would get together by next month), they just nodded and asked when he wanted the computers rewired.

It was… Unnerving, to say the least. And he doesn’t see Clarke for the whole day- she's off mapping grounder territory, or something- so he doesn’t get to run it by her, to ask her if she wants to ignore it or… Do something else. Fuck if Bellamy knows.

Throughout the whole day, his nerves are on end. Which is new experience for Bellamy- usually he never felt this way about anyone but Octavia. It’s almost funny how that person is Clarke Griffin- the one person he thought was nearly impossible to get along with, let alone genuinely _like_.

(He was so wrong.)

When Clarke eventually comes back, she’s whisked off to stitch up cuts in the med bay. By the time the sky goes inky black, he gives up waiting for Clarke and with a sigh head into his tent. His bed seems colder than usual and he realises with resignation that he almost wants Clarke beside him.

As he begins to drift off into an uneasy sleep, he hears the opening flap of his tent open, followed by light footsteps. But Bellamy keeps his eyes shut and lets a little smirk play on his face as Clarke takes off her clothes, until she’s just in her underwear. Suddenly, the warmth he had been craving moments before was in his bed, cheek pressed into his chest, an arm draped over his stomach.

Without thinking, Bellamy wraps his arms around her torso, hugging her closer, the bundle of nerves dissolving because this feels _right_.

“Fancy seeing you here,” He murmurs into her hair. (Which smells amazing. Which is weird, considering they don’t have any _shampoo_.)

She smacks him lightly. “Shut up. I had to give my blankets to Harley so he doesn’t freeze to death. Not my fault you're a freaking furnace.”

Chuckling, he presses a kiss to her forehead. “Don’t worry, princess. Your secret's safe with me.”

“Oh, don’t let your ego get ahead of you,” She scoffs.

It turns out that next night Harley needs her blankets again, because she doesn’t want him getting the flu again.

And the night after that, her hammock had gotten a huge hole in it, so out of safety reasons it was only right that she shouldn’t sleep in it.

And then, a month later, Bellamy’s bed had been occupied by Harley, because he picked up _another_ bug, and Bellamy’s bed was the comfiest, so, unfortunately, Bellamy had to share Clarke’s hammock.

(Not that he was arguing. But Harley did. He wasn’t getting paid enough by Jasper and Monty to pretend he was sick _every other day._ )

And Clarke _did_ think it was strange how Harley's coughs and colds could last nearly weeks on end, but she didn't say anything. Because she was acting doctor, and if a patient was sick then she would treat them. (She also liked the excuse to sleep in Bellamy's bed. Not that she would ever admit that. Ever. To _anyone_.)

Eventually, after two months and a near-death experience, they stopped with the excuses. And Clarke just took up permanent residency in Bellamy’s bed.

And that’s how it started.

****  
  


~*~

They’re hardly a couple, though. Sure, once or twice someone has caught them leaving each other’s tents (it’s nothing a glare from Bellamy while he’s holding his gun won’t quell) but generally Bellamy will get up early so he can be up before the other’s and they won’t have to put up with relentless cajoling. But that doesn’t mean they’re a _couple_. Because they aren’t.

 

Bellamy Blake and Clarke Griffin are whirlwinds of humans, they are brushing hands and knocking knees, but they are nothing more.

(They are tangled sheets, clasped hands and light kisses. But nothing more.)

~*~

He’s content during that brief time. There’s a tentative truce with the grounders, and while the Mountain Men are still a threat, they seem far off and distant- like the remnants of a childish fear that for some reason still stays with you.

And to think Bellamy almost forgot that his story would forever be a story of war and destruction.

~*~

Bellamy is the least religious person you’ll meet. The idea of a person living above the sky on clouds doesn’t really do much for him. But in moments of desperate need, his mother used to clasp her hands together and pray. Bellamy’s never prayed in his life.

But when the explosion goes off, and he ducks for cover, he can make out feet that most certainly don’t belong to Grounders through the smoke and fog. And for the first time ever, and probably not the last, Bellamy thinks _‘Dear God, keep her safe’_.

It’s his last thought before the black suffocates him.

~*~

When he sees her for the first time since the drop ship, his heart stops beating. He watches as she runs towards to him, and he can’t even _process_ what’s happening because it’s Clarke’s but that can’t be possible because it’s _Clarke_.

He’s been obsessing over her whereabouts for this past while- where exactly is she, what are they doing to her, _is she alive?_

He would have stormed Mount Weather himself if it meant getting Clarke out alive.

But she's here now, coming closer and throwing herself onto him, pulling him in for a tight hug.

He's still in a shock before his senses come to him again and he collects himself for long enough to wrap his arms around her waist and hold her against him.

She's here, now, with him again. Together.

~*~

“We have time,” He whispers against her lips.

Her index finger connects the freckles on his face, and he turns his head slightly and presses a kiss into her palm.

_I missed you so much._

It’s on the tip of his tongue- But Bellamy Blake is a coward when it comes to emotions and Clarke Griffin.

“People are going to wonder why we’re not yelling at each other yet,” She breathes, her mouth curved into a smile.

“Let them wonder, princess” He mumbles into her hair. “Let them wonder,” He repeats, dusting lazy kiss from her ear to her collarbone, and he can’t help but smile when she swallows, and he can feel her heartbeat quicken.

It’s nice to take a moment to breath. A moment away from worrying about Mount Weather, trying to plan the next attack or walking on eggshells with Lexa and the grounders.

It’s nice to be alone with Clarke for a while.

“Bellamy,” She sighs. “People will start to gossip-”

“Clarke,” He says, gently cupping her face in his large, calloused hands. (He doesn’t realise until a few hours later that it was the first time he’s ever done that to a women in his bed. Then again, Clarke is no ordinary woman.)

“People don’t matter. Now- now is what matters.” He begins to cover her face in kisses, her nose scrunching slightly when he gently places kisses on her eyelids, but he doesn’t miss the way she slowly places her hands over his large ones.

“We’ve got time,” He whispers again, his forehead resting against hers. “Besides, we might be dead by tomorrow.”

This makes her laugh. “You can guarantee if my mother finds out about this she will kill you.”

He grimaces. “I can only imagine.”

“What are we doing, Bellamy?” She tries to make it light- but he can hear the weight behind her words.

“I don’t know, princess,” He admits. “But we can figure it out. We-”

“Have time,” She finishes for him, and when she laughs it sounds like joy and happiness, and Bellamy’s beginning to think that all those years living in fear and sadness are going to be forgotten and made up with these new years of life and lightness.

~*~

He was wrong, of course. So, so wrong.

~*~

The night after Finn dies, he gets up in the middle of the night because instinct and knowledge of Clarke will tell him that she’s not sleeping. Not that he blames her, even he couldn’t manage more than a restless drifting, and he sure as hell wasn’t Finn’s number one fan.

But it’s hard on Clarke- it’s hard on all of them- to have lost him the way that they did.

So when he walks from his tent into the night, he’s not surprised to see Clarke sitting in front of the fire.

“Hey,” He says quietly as he sits down beside her on a log.

Sniffing, she wipes tears from her cheeks. “Hey,” She answers.

“It’s okay if you need to cry. You deserve that, at least.”

“I don’t deserve anything,” she whispers venomously. “I _killed_ him, Bellamy. One of our own, one of the hundred, and _I’m_ the one that killed him.

Bellamy shakes his head, already beginning to prickle with anger. “Don’t listen to what Raven or the others say, Clarke. Don’t you dare. They just don’t know what to do with their feelings and decide to take it out on you.”

Clarke doesn’t answer, and he can see a fresh tears begin to roll down her cheek. “Clarke,” He implores, taking her shoulders and turning her to face him. “You didn’t have a choice. Anyone can see that.”

She shakes her head, tears filling her eyes. “I could have tried to-”

“No,” He cuts her off. “The grounders wouldn’t have taken anything other than blood. There was nothing you could have done. Clarke, you did what you had to do.”

“I just- I killed him myself. I killed him myself and I can’t get his damn blood out from my fingernails-” Sobs rack her body and she desperately picks at her nails, and Bellamy takes her hand before she can hurt herself.

He whispers comforts to her as he wraps his arms around her body and holds her close. He holds her hand in his large one as she buries her head in his chest, cowering away from it as if it disgusts her.

He leads her by the hand to his tent and does the same thing he does every night when he wakes in a cold sweat convinced that he still has gunpowder on his hand.

He dunks her hand in a basin of lukewarm water and grabs the scrub brush from the locker at the side of his head. And then he takes the delicate things and cleans what’s left of Finn’s blood.

He murmurs _“I know, I know.”_ As he does, because God, he does. She weeps as he does it, but her cries die down slowly and soon it’s reduced to silent tears welling in her eyes.

“It’s not going to get easier,” He confides quietly. “You’re never going to forget the look on their face, and how it felt as you did it. But as the days go on, you’ll stop thinking about it so much. And soon you’ll only think of it every now and then, and it will still hurt, but I promise, it won’t hurt as much as now.”

He dries her hands with a towel and presses a kiss to each nail.

“I hope you’re right,” She whispers, her voice breaking.

So does he.

~*~

The second that she puts her hand on top of his, he knows that he will never be the same. This will define him.

~~(It destroys him.)~~

But she looks him deep in the eyes and says “Together.”

They push it forward and wait for the music of their destruction to reach them.

~*~

Clarke presses a kiss to his cheek and whispers "May we meet again."

She speaks in explosions.

****  
  


~*~

He watched as she left, and then turned back to the camp.

He remembers looking at it, and thinking that this is an insurmountable odd. How is he meant to do this? To build up the camp without staining everything with the blood on his hands? How is he meant to look at Octavia, whose eyes flicker with something he doesn’t want to place everytime she looks at him.

She tells him _‘It’s okay, Bell’_ but he’s not a fool and can hear the waver of doubt in her voice.

And of course, anger greets him once again, the moment that Clarke disappears from sight. And of course, Bellamy invites it into his heart. He let’s it fuel him, because if he didn’t have it as a motivator then he wouldn’t have anything. He let’s it fill him up, let’s his entire soul become a slave to its wishes because he doesn’t like how empty he feels without Clarke by his side. He let’s it whisper sweet nothing into his ear about how Clarke left him, how awfully heavy the weight of his burdens are and how she happily lets him carry it.

But in the heart of his anger, there’s grief. They’re both tragedies in their own way, he supposes. Clarke Griffin, the princess whose crown was too heavy for her head. Bellamy Blake, the rebel who’ll carry the weight of the world because he’s used to it and try desperately to see it as a responsibility rather than a punishment.

But he still waits for someone to carry it with him. He still waits for Clarke.

~*~

He thinks back to moments lying in bed with her and thinking that the entire world was at his fingertips, he need only stretch to reach it.

A small voice in his head asks him if this is what love is supposed to feel like.

A larger voice replies _‘Shut the hell up!’_

 

The smaller voice is pretty damn persistent.

 

(At night he remembers how his heart used to thud in his chest whenever he saw her and he’ll wallow in his misery because you idiot  that was the beginnings of love.)

~*~

She comes back, of course. He always knew she would- like calls to like.

But she comes back different, changed. Her hair is braided like a grounder, there’s fire in her eyes and smoke surrounding them and he can see that war has become knitted into her, that she’s come to terms with the inevitable fate of their existence. But he knows that it’s _her_ terms, Clarke Griffin doesn’t break that easily.

She left and she was ashes and dust and broken, and she’s returned a supernova and a raging fire and _strong_.

(Not fixed though, never quite fixed. There will always be scars, there will always be aftermath.)

With her, Bellamy was _Atlas_ , he carried the pillars of the world they crafted by themselves on his shoulders. He was stable and mighty and a hero.

She leaves, and slowly, internally, he becomes rubble and debris, a natural disaster, a tragic product of Clarke’s absence.

Not that anyone would know, of course. Not that he’d ever let _Clarke_ know- he threw himself into work, he built new med bays, made better ties with the grounders, hell, he’s even started a housing plan.

He does all this, and tells everybody- tells himself- that it’s for the camp. For the hundred.

But he knows the truth. He’s doing it for Clarke. So that when she returned- and he knew she would, she _had_ to- That he could throw it back in her face. So he could look at her and say _‘Look what I did. Look what I did_ without _you.’_

It’s nothing more than anger. And jealousy, he supposes. Jealousy that she got to leave and he didn’t, that he had to take the blame and deal with and she _didn’t._

And the second she steps into camp she is, predictably, bombarded by people and questions, by a bone crushing hug from her mother and tentative peace offerings in the form of a smile from Raven, and a stoic nod from Octavia, who was almost as angry as Bellamy when she left. The second she can tear her eyes away from the masses, though, she looks for him. Of course, she finds him.

Their eyes lock for no more than a few seconds before he turns to leave, his blood already boiling. He can’t fucking stand the way everybody is already excusing her running away, as if she was _deserving_ of it. Clarke Griffin pulled that lever as much as he did. But while she swanned off to discover Earth, Bellamy was left to put up with relentless questions from Kane, Abbey and Lexa alike, with uneasy glances and an suffocating amount of guilt.

So he storms off into the woods- he does that a lot, nowadays. He finds peace in the quiet and the smells and the fact that Clarke was probably out there in a place like this and he hoped she got lost. He liked that he could become a hurricane and no one would have to deal with his destruction.

(But as much as he wanted her to get lost, he wanted her to be found. He is as much a terror of anger as he is sadness.)

Time moves funny as he makes his way in the woods, going deeper and deeper, not really caring about how dark it’s getting and how he’s low on ammo. He just focuses on getting away, on ducking branches and dodging traps he lay himself. And in the deep corners of his mind, he listens out for Clarke’s footsteps too.

She followed him.

He doesn’t know how he feels about this.

Soon, he reaches the small clearing he goes to every now and then, when he wants to get away from the camp.

(He’ll stand in the middle and look in front of him, into the deep dark woods and think about how easy it would be to take a few more steps and  just keep going. How easy it would be to do what Clarke did, to walk and walk and walk and never go back. He could do it, if he really wanted to. All he’d need to do is reach. He won’t, of course. He’ll turn back and trudge back to camp so he can work himself to the bone. He’ll turn back because of Octavia, because he has responsibilities, and because all those people will get angsty without someone to blame for their trouble.)

When she approaches him, he doesn’t turn to face her. And it nearly kills him.

“Bellamy,” She whispers.

“Don’t.” His voice is ragged.

“Bell,” She says again, louder and more determined this time. She places a hand on his bicep and he rears backwards, whipping around to face her.

“Don’t do that,” He snaps.

“Bellamy, I’m sorry I had to-”

“Oh, leave it,” He brushes her off angrily. “You’re not sorry for anything you did. You were happy to leave me here to take the blame and the pointed fingers so you could what? Find yourself?”

Her nostrils flare, and he sees that anger spark in her eyes. “You know it wasn’t like that-”

“It was _exactly_ like that, Clarke. You left me and didn’t give a _damn_.” And then she looks at him with _pity_ , and that fucking does it. “But it’s fine,” He says gruffly. “Because the camp is great now. We’ve got med bays and rec rooms and we’ve even got a stable treaty with the grounders and there’s not even a _‘we’_ in this because it was me, okay?  Sure, your mom and Kane helped out once or twice but it was me, _I_ goddamn did it. I built this damn thing up from the ground and I did it without you or anyone else and I’m still not getting any _damn_ credit for it but _Clarke Griffin_ runs off for six months and she’s still a hero! What part of that is fair to you?”

“You pulled that lever with me, Clarke. You pulled that lever, you killed those people too, but you get to leave and I’m left to deal with _your_ guilt. I had to pick up _your_ pieces and no one cared if I got hurt while doing it. And now you _come back_? What part of you thinks you can come back? You haven’t even earned the right to step _foot_ in here,” He spits. “You didn’t have to deal with the questions and the accusations and Jasper’s fucking cold shoulder- I did! I did, and I had to do it for you. I just- You were _there_. You looked at me and told me together. You _promised_ me that!”

He doesn’t realise he’d been shouting until he stops and find that his throat is raw. And by then, he’s come to senses enough to notice the tears welling in Clarke’s eyes and the silent sobs wracking her body.

Two things happen simultaneously- one part of him thinks _‘Good’_ staunchly. Another part of him softens at the sight of it, and there’s a pang in his heart.

"I'm sorry," she chokes out. "I'm sorry, Bellamy. But don't you dare tell me that I'm a bad guy now." Something sparks in her eyes and her face is hard, resolved. "Don't you dare condemn the way I chose to fix what was broken- _you_ of all people."

And what the hell does that mean? ‘ _You_ of all people.’

“I know that I left them, and I know that it was unfair to you. God, I know that, I thought about it everyday and I’m so sorry Bellamy, I really am, but I’ve put people before myself time and time again and I couldn’t do it anymore I just- I couldn’t.” She lets out a breath, and looks at him, studies him. “I could feel myself slipping away and- And I needed to find it again before I lost all sense of who I am, and became someone whose entire life was war and pain and tough decisions.”

Someone whose entire life was war and pain and tough decisions. “Sounds like me.”

She cocks her head, feigning thoughtfulness. “We’re not so different, Bellamy.”

He snorts, and she huffs out a small laugh. “What? We’re not. You just…” He looks at her, and she gives him a small, fond smile. “You’re too hard on yourself.”

He raises an eyebrow, and she takes a step closer. “Really, Bellamy. You’ve done amazing thing for the camp, but Bellamy-” Her voice has a small note of pleading within it, a desperateness. “-You’ve given them everything, and there’s only so much you can give before you start to chip away at yourself. Why won’t you just let yourself breathe for a moment?”

He shrugs, and turns his body so he’s looking back at the camp, a place he’s come to love and resent. The place where his hard work is put to, the place where his bones are rooted.

“I can’t just- I’ve done so much shit in my life, I need to repay it somehow. And this is the best way,” He makes a vague gesture towards the camp. “I can build houses for people even though I’m part of the reason it was teared down in the first place.”

“Are you happy here?” She asks from his side.

“I don’t know.”

“Tell me when you figure it out.”

~*~

She fits herself back into the seams of his life so easily it’s like she never left.

The next day he wakes up and she’s demonstrating to her mother a new medical method of whatever that she had picked up in another grounder settlement, and by the end of the day the new med bay is well worn in.

And despite his silent vows to himself that he wouldn’t just forgive Clarke like that, the he wouldn’t forget what she had done, he finds himself smiling to her from across the camp, staying up to help her with her current medical experiments and letting her resume her place at his side as if it had never been absent.

He doesn’t forget, and he hasn’t completely forgiven, but he understands. He can understand why she did it, and he doesn’t completely excuse it, but he understands it, and he can live with it.

He looks at Clarke from across the campfire and she smiles at him and he realises that _god_ he missed her, through all the anger that was within him it came from grief. But she’s back now. And he can live with it.

~*~

One night, they’re looking up at the stars and she’s just finished telling him a story about the sky that a grounder clan she helped have, and he asks her- “Why do you do it?”

“Do what?”

He gestures towards the sparse woods that are laid out beyond them. “Travel. Explore.”

She looks at him as if it were the simplest thing in the world. “Because it’s _there_.”

He nods, and he thinks he gets it. “Are you happy there?”

“Yes.”

He waits a second before downing the rest of of his moonshine for some bravery before asking her- “Are you happy _here_?”

She turns to look at him with a face unreadable and after a beat answers “Yes.”

~*~

He realises much too late that he is as important to her as she is to him.

He only notices when he comes back to base camp with a clenched jaw, his weight on Miller and Monroe’s shoulder’s and an arrow in his thigh. (Kyle had sworn he had cleared the place for booby traps, and Bellamy mentally berates himself because he knew full well that Kyle was about as competent as a dead fly.)

It’s only when she curses him and calls him an idiot and-

_“There could have been_ poison _in this you stupid man!”_

__

_“Clarke-”_

__

_“What the hell will I do if you die-?”_

__

_“_ Clarke _.”_

__

_“What?”_

__

_“I feel fine, okay? All things considered, I’m fine.”_

__

_“Well do me a favour and stay that way.”_

It’s then that he finally understands that they are entwined into each other more than they know.

~*~

She’s sitting beside him- where he’s lying down on the bed of the infirmary because he’s been condemned to another day of bed rest- when she blurts it out.

“Bellamy, I missed you.”

He whips his head around to look at her. She holds his gaze, and her hands are clasped in front of her. “I did, I really did. And you can’t do dangerous stuff like that and get yourself killed because I love you okay and-” She clamps her mouth shut and if it hadn’t been during the current situation he would have laughed at the way her face paled and eyes widened.

His heart is hammering wildly in his chest but he takes her wrist gently and tugs it closer. “Princess, didn’t you know? I love the goddamn bones of you. Couldn’t stop if I wanted to.”

She gets up and leans closer to him, his head taken delicately into her hands so that her lips- that are quirked up in a small grin- ghost over his and whispers “I love the goddamn bones of you, Bellamy Blake.”

She kisses him then, light and fragile but sweet, and it feels like coming home to her.

“I missed you too, princess,” He whispers before melting into another kiss.

And he’s finally home.

~*~

He loves her but leaves her wild, and her calming touches and soft smiles keep his anger at bay.

He remembers thinking that his was a tale of hatred and war, and that it was a fixed point and couldn’t be changed.

But then he looks over at Clarke tucked into his side so perfectly as if she was made just for him, and decides that maybe he should start to re-write his story.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it! It'd be great if you could tell me what you think! :)
> 
> Come talk to me on [tumblr!](http://belxlarke.tumblr.com/)


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